Pike Fishing
It is September 1999. Because I am just getting back into angling, after an eighteen year break, all of my tackle is of another era. I decided that I would need a matching pair of rods and reels, that would not only suffice for pike fishing, but also would be suitable for carp fishing. I finally settled for a pair of "Daiwa Powermesh" rods in 2 1/4 pound test curve. The reels are "Shimano Baitrunner's 6010 GT". The line is "Terry Eustace Pro Gold" in twelve pound breaking strain.
My knowledge and experience in pike fishing is very limited, although I have managed to catch a couple of mid twenty pound fish. This was not down to any great ability on my part, but more to circumstances. My son Vinny and myself had made the journey from home to a small lake the other side of Cambridge. When we arrived we found the lake completely frozen over, (good planning on our part?). I do not remember what we used to break the ice, but break it we did. I tackled up and in went the dead bait. The water was freezing up in the rod rings, and it was really bitingly cold. Fifteen minutes or so had gone by, when much to our amazement, the float disappeared. I struck immediately and was into a large fish. The float had disappeared under the ice, and it suddenly dawned on me, that the line could soon wear against the sharp edge of the ice. I kept the pressure on, and Vinny netted the pike at the fist attempt. Bloody hell it was enormous. We carried the fish up the bank and started to unhook it. I left Vinny to weight it, while I re-baited the rod. I cast out and turned back to Vinny. Within that short space of time the float had again disappeared. I again struck into a fish, and away it went under the ice. The struggle was the same as the first fish, only now we had an additional problem, how to net the second fish, because the first fish was still in the landing net. Vinny quickly weighed the first fish which registered 26 pounds exactly on the Avon scales. The fish was slipped back into the freezing water, and the second fish was netted. Another enormous fish. We unhooked him, and weighed him in the net. 26 pounds and 5 ounces. We just looked at one another. You wait all of your life to catch a twenty pound pike, and here we were in the space of five minutes having two of them. Explain that if you can?. The second of the two pike had fresh raw marks down both sides of his body. There were two sets of marks on either side, about five inches apart, and it looked for all the world as if another far larger pike had grabbed him across his body. I fished the lake for another two seasons, trying hard to catch the even bigger pike, without any luck at all. In fact I never saw another pike even approaching twenty pounds, let alone one of the big two.
I have thought hard and long about how I should tackle my pike fishing, and I have decided to use a single treble hook only. It stands to reason, that the more hooks you are using, the more trouble there will be in removing them. Another reason, was that I was not sure of being able to remove two trebles from a pikes throat. I have seen the three videos from Fox, featuring Max Cottis. Now Max makes it all seem very easy, but for someone with very limited experience, I knew it would not be like that for me. I tried to purchase a good sized disgorger that would push out a single treble, but could not find one that was any good, so in the end I made my own. I made mine from a picture I found in a book that I was reading (Falkus and Bullers Freshwater Fishing) page 407. The disgorger is called a "Hookout" and is made by an American firm. This same disgorger would work just as well for carp and eels when using large eyed hooks.
Friday 19-01-01. My pike fishing has moved on a bit since the above article. I now use the standard two treble set up, and the reason for this is that I was missing a lot of takes. At first this did not seem to be a problem, as I was safe in the knowledge that although I missed some bites, I certainly did not deep hook any fish. As time went by, the missed bites did become more of a mental problem, so I had to re-evaluate the set up so that I could translate more of the takes into caught fish. I looked hard and long at everything that everyone else was doing, but was still not sure if any of the methods was right for me. My stumbling block was that with all of the set ups, it was still possible to deep hook a fish. In fairy tales we all know that a pike will come along, pick up your bait and move off, it will then turn the bait and proceed to swallow it. Well anyone who has dead baited for pike will no doubt have experienced a pike that has arrived on the scene and promptly swallowed the deadbait without any registration at your end of a bite. By the time you are aware that you have a fish, the damage has been done, and you have a deeply hooked fish.
What I was looking for was a set up that as soon as a pike
picked up my deadbait then I knew about it. I have settled for a standard
two hook treble rig on an eighteen inch length of wire. About 1/2 inch from
the deadbaits tail, I pinch on a couple of swan shots. NO other weight is
used. I simply cast out my deadbait, and then clip on the dangler. As the
dangler slowly settles back downwards and takes up the slack line, I slowly
and gently take up the line to bring it up to the top again, until no further
downwards drop of the dangler takes place. This all sounds long winded,
but only takes a couple of minutes. When a pike comes upon the deadbait,
it puts its head down and tail up, picks up the bait, and has no choice
but to bring itself onto an even keel again. This applies equally to if
it is going to swim off with the bait, or if it is going to swallow the
bait there and then. The very action of it coming back onto a level keel
takes the weight of the two swan shots off the bottom, and the dangler has
no choice but to drop down. A single bleep from the bite alarm is all you
need to pick up the rod and pull into the fish. Any bleep that you get is
almost certainly from a pike picking up your deadbait, as the chances of
the bait making any sudden movement of its own is pretty slim. Well that
is the theory, does it work. The simple answer is YES. The reasoning is
sound, and since I have been using this set up ALL of the pike have been
hooked just inside their mouths.